Challenged!
by Aiffe
Summary: An unrelated drabble collection, stories ranging from 100 to 300 words. All characters, pairings range from traditional to crack, gen, het, yaoi and yuri, serious and comedy. Something for everyone! Many award winners!
1. The Brief Lives of Snowflakes

This drabble was for the second week of the IYficchallenge LJ community. The theme that week was "Snow." The drabble won third place.

* * *

**Title:** The Brief Lives of Snowflakes  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** WAFF, some angst. Takes place a bit after episode 101, "Seven Years Later, Lingering Snow."  
**Pairing:** Miroku/Sango  
**Word Count:** 200 exactly, according to MS Word. Too lazy to count it manually.  
**Summary:** After seeing one woman be taken by the snow, Miroku fears for another.

＊.X.＊

When the storm comes, it reminds him. The ways to freeze are as numerous as the snowflakes.

Kagome shivers brightly from under most of Inuyasha's clothes. But despite her attire, she's not the one he's worried about.

He remembers that Sango already froze for him once. It seems to be his curse, that women's lives fall apart after meeting him.

And Miroku believes in curses.

Possessed by demons, ice, bitterness, these women come back to haunt him. He hears their voices on the winds. Like snowflakes, like butterfly wings, once touched, never the same.

Which could also be said about him, though he doesn't think that way.

He finds her under a tree, wide eyes seen through snow-covered branches, crouching for heat. She says she needed some air. Her face is red, from tears or cold, he doesn't know. He sits beside her, tracing long lines in the snow with a stick.

He should leave now, run for her life, but he can see that she's freezing in her uniform, her over-clothes having been donated to Kagome.

So he pulls her into his arms. Cursed or not, to stay apart forever is another kind of freezing.

Little by little, Sango melts.


	2. Someday

This was originally an entry in week three of IYfic(underscore)challenge on LJ. The theme was "smile." It won nothing, but I still like it. :)

* * *

**Title:** Someday  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Genre:** Angst, foreshadowing  
**Pairings:** None  
**Word Count:** 199, according to MS Word.  
**Summary:** While possessed, Kagura can possess nothing.

＊.X.＊

Naraku smiles at her quandary, heart in his hand, and tells her what to do.

When she kills, she repeats his smile, her life reflected in his hand. She even laughs, but it is Naraku's laugh, echoing still in the space where her heart should be.

She washes, scrubbing more at Naraku's memory than blood. She promises herself that someday she'll be free of that. Someday she'll be her own person, with her own smile.

She imagines it. Finding herself free on the wind, finding the rhythm of her pulse, the simple things. Finding a smile that is her own. A smile associated with that abstract concept called "happiness," which she understands only through its destruction.

Naraku's mouth widens at the sight of blood, as if all the happiness she had destroyed that day had flowed into him.

Someday, someday, is all she can tell herself. Someday she will bathe in his blood, and the victorious wind will wash it away. Someday she will know beauty without being told, and perhaps it will not be the carnage that Naraku tells her is beautiful. Someday she will know what her own smile feels like.

But that day is not today.


	3. Worthless

Note: Fourth week drabble in IYfic(underscore)challenge. Won third place. The theme was 'Remember,' meaning specifically that it was a moment from canon, either retold or remembered.

* * *

**Title:** Worthless  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** Angst, (huge surprise) Evil, Obsession.  
**Pairings:** OnigumoKikyou (The greater-than indicates the onesidedness.)  
**Word Count:** 104 by MS Word.  
**Summary:** Naraku hates that he still remembers.

＊.X.＊

Onigumo, Naraku thinks, is not worth remembering.

Why remember that worthless creature, with his petty, failed schemes. Why bother brooding on that pain, that desperation, that thing-of-the-past miserable life.

Naraku is heartless and perfect now, unafraid, unloving. He doesn't need to think of Kikyou, her beautiful eyes that looked as if they had not cried in a long time, but wanted to, the way her bottom lip used to pout, the gentle hope she gave him, if only for a moment.

He doesn't need it. He doesn't want it. That entire life was worthless, and he disowns it.

But he thinks of nothing else.


	4. Eternal

Written for IYfic(underscore)challenge. The theme was flowers.

* * *

**Title** Eternal**  
Rating** PG. Dark themes present, but I've seen similar in films with a G rating.**  
Genres** Tragedy, angst, loss.**  
Pairings** None.**  
Word Count** 199**  
Summary** Kohaku is perennial. After the decades that have passed, and all that he has endured, he is wiser than the child he appears to be.

＊.X.＊

Finally, he understands the meaning of his gift. He gave her a field of flowers, looking no further than the moment she would see them. But the flowers are older than they are, and will survive them. He gave her a slice of eternity, and it is more than she can hold.

Her hair melts into the endless white lilies, her skin is mottled and pale, and she looks at him with bluish film over her eyes. Her hopes of completing the jewel are gone now, along with her hopes of completing her heart, and he knows he has withheld both from her.

With her last breath, she gives the flowers back to him. He is afraid to touch her, so much like a stranger she is to him now, but stumbling reverently to fall beside her, he tries to whisper that he doesn't want them, and fails to tell her that he only ever wanted her.

No wind disturbs the immortal boy, the sister who lived her life loving him, or the ancient, endlessly reborn flowers.


	5. Kagome—kagome

This was an entry in iyfic(underscore)contest on LJ. (Yes, that's a different community than the other ones.) The theme was "minor character," but I chose characters so underwhelmingly obscure, no one knows who the heck they are, or why they're gay.

So just to refresh everyone's memory, Houjou Akitoki is the Houjou preincarnation/antecedent in the anime. Nobunaga Amari is the boy with the monkey who helped save Princess Tsuyu from the toad youkai early on. And it doesn't get much more minor than that.

_"...we know who is standing behind us..." _--reference to how kagome-kagome is played. Oh, how I loves the pretentious allegory.

* * *

**Title:** Kagome-kagome  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count** 211. (The limit on this challenge was 250)  
**Summary:** Love is not a matter of choice. Sex is. Neither boy was ever good at games anyway.

＊.X.＊

Akitoki is as clumsy with his apologies as he is with his lovemaking. "Sorry, about _this_, but I can't, if Kagome finds out…"

Amari is too busy walking off cliffs to listen, his tongue as traitorous as his feet. "There is no Kagome. Or at least, you're not married to anyone by that name."

They play kagome-kagome, tripping inept circles around the truth, as childish as they ever were. "There was a man once, and he hurt me," Akitoki says, as if that explained everything. "Kagome protected me, I need her."

Amari's eyes are filled with hurt and longing. He knows what it's like to love once, and above one's station. He can taste his own long-forsaken innocence on Akitoki's kiss, feel the heated disappointment in their blood as their bodies press together. It isn't love, but it's something love never gave them, and has its own painful beauty to it.

"And your wife's needs are sated with my cousin Oda," Amari says bitterly. "Such is life. We'll always win, because we know who is standing behind us, even with our eyes closed."

"How do you know so much?" Akitoki wonders softly against Amari's tear-moist neck.

"There was a girl," Amari says in an offhand way. "We played kagome-kagome a lot."


	6. Gates

Entry in iyfic(underscore)challenge. Tied for third place. The theme was "protection," and I swear, it took every ounce of willpower not to write about condoms.

* * *

**Title:** Gates  
**Word count:** 100 x 2 (200)  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** General, Drama.  
**Pairings**: None.  
**Warnings:** Spoiler for episode 145, and some liberties taken with canon.  
**Summary:** Even worlds need protecting, so one must guard the holes in them carefully.

**I.**

In every battle, it is the first thing his opponents strike at, and the thing he reflexively protects.

He barely thinks about how when he closes each eye in turn, the right's view is slightly darker.

Sesshoumaru does the unthinkable, dragging out his brother's eye with his long claws. Inuyasha has a fleeting image of himself with a patch matching Kaede's.

One eye blind, he confronts father and brother. Reluctantly, he tears himself a place between them.

When the pearl is returned to him, it is different. He sees perfectly clearly in both eyes.

It takes some getting used to.

**II.**

They do not prevent everyone from going through the gate, but no one may do so cheaply.

Gozu and Mezu are the stone altars on which many overly-brave or curious things have been sacrificed.. Marbled over their shadowed almost-flesh they bear the long-dried blood of those who ask a boon without understanding the price.

_Only the dead may pass._

They protect the gate loyally, lest the living defile that ground.

When the inu-youkai comes, they know there is not an altar worthy of his blood.

They bow to him, for he is Sesshoumaru, first cousin of Kerberos, guardian of Hell.


	7. A Series of Subtle Hints on a Most Delic...

Entry in InuyashaIssekiwa, which is a Yahoo group. The theme was "food," and this drabble tied for second. (It would have tied for first had I voted for myself... damn morals get in the way every time.)

* * *

**Title:** A Series of Subtle Hints on a Most Delicate Matter  
**Genre:** Humor, General  
**Word Count: **109  
**Rating:** G... I think. I've never written a G before.  
**Summary:** Hey, I think she's trying to tell him something.

＊.X.＊

She is inscrutable.

Sesshoumaru pretends not to watch as Rin nibbles on grass, and finally nudges Jaken when she begins to gnaw on tree bark.

He understands humans _as_ food, but seems to have misplaced the manual entitled "The Care and Feeding of Humans."

He _does_ know that if humans, youkai and eating are all involved, it's usually the humans on the business end. Jaken seems to have neglected to tell Rin this, as she is nibbling and licking at his fingers.

Sesshoumaru _dearly_ hopes this isn't some sort of mating ritual.

The taiyoukai makes a small undignified sound as Rin attempts to ingest Mokomoko-sama.

She must be stopped.


	8. Freeze Tag

Entry at Inuyasha Issekiwa. The challenge was "games." This won first place, yay!

* * *

**Title:** Freeze Tag  
**Rating:** Gosh-darnit, another G.  
**Pairings:** Implied Kikyou/Inuyasha, can be taken as Kagome/Inuyasha.  
**Genre:** General, Drama.  
**Word Count:** 200  
**Summary:** It's time for Inuyasha to grow up.

＊.X.＊

Even a child's game of tag is life in miniature. When one grows up, however, the consequences are no longer so mild.

Inuyasha grew up at the age of seven.

When tag became real, he ran so hard his own breath couldn't catch him, raced his pulse towards the safety that didn't exist. There were no teams, or if there were, no one was on his.

At fourteen years and eleven months, Inuyasha found out what happens to those who get caught.

The village children braided flowers in his hair, and named the forest after him. Then they grew up.

There can be no cheating, not in the real game. For fifty years he didn't so much as twitch a finger, as passive as any other part of the landscape.

Finally, someone touched him who could say "tag," and let him back in life's game. She played as if it were still make-believe, taking nothing seriously.

Inuyasha stopped thinking like a child at the age of seven, but he is realizing that it was more a trauma than a coming-of-age. There are no shortcuts to adulthood, he must begin again where he left off.

At sixty-five/fifteen/seven, Inuyasha is growing up.


	9. Hushed

Entry at iyfic(underscore)challenge. The theme was "secret(s)."

* * *

**Title:** Hushed  
**Rating:** PG, for the vaguest mentions of naughtiness.  
**Genre:** Angst, drama, twist, backstory.  
**Pairing:** Izayoi/Inu-no-Taishou-to-be  
**Word Count:** 200  
**Summary:** If you can't keep it in your pants, keep it in the family.

＊.X.＊

He _does_ wonder about her. What sordid secrets must haunt her past, to make her love not one, but two youkai. Her family turned their backs on her long before she ever met Father, but Father doesn't know that.

No matter. She keeps their secret between them.

She pleads in his ear for him to keep hers, desperate-sorrowful.

They are united, neither wants to break his heart, for they both love him.

And they are bound, caught in a mess of lies and limbs they will never claw their way out of. Izayoi with tears in her eyes, clinging to him as if she were drowning, his hand testing the swell of her belly in their every encounter.

It is the one time Sesshoumaru has ever betrayed his father, and he will hate himself for it. He will hate the living reminder more.

But he could never refuse Izayoi, the strange girl who came and gave him what she had, admiration, tenderness, herself. Izayoi whose love was reserved for things inhuman, who had a need deeper than his own, one he could never hope to fill.

Izayoi, the one forbidden fruit in an open garden of free and worthless things.


	10. The Girl Who Had Been Trod Upon

For iyfic contest on LJ. The theme was "minion(s)" I took some liberties with it, I admit.

* * *

**Title: **The Girl Who Had Been Trod Upon  
**Word Count:** 220  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** Angst, general, drama.  
**Summary:** A life lived in servitude—she always did as she was told, believing it would work out in the end.

＊.X.＊

When she was a child, she said, "You can't make me," and stomped her little feet, working her miniature determination into a frenzy. "Why can't I just get married when I grow up, like a normal girl?" But the elders saw great power in this one, and a miko she became.

When she was a miko, bound and dutiful and appropriately sorrowful, she said, "It's too much for me, I'll be overcome." But cast the jewel into the sea, and greater monsters will only emerge, bury it beneath the earth, and the earth will roil and consume all who walk it. There was no other way, so jewel-guardian she became.

When she was a jewel-guardian, she said, "I think I am in love." But love was not permitted to one such as herself, and she died full of hate.

When she was dead, and full of hate, Urasue raised her, and she said, "Enough." She knelt before the hag like the minion she was expected to be, and placed her hands on the witch's shoulders. She, in her life and death, had been used, tricked, betrayed, and denied the simplest pleasures, but she was no youkai's minion.

The girl who had been trod upon walked where she willed for the first time in life or death, and it was bittersweet.


	11. The Thing About Kagome

Written for iyfic challenge on LJ. They upped their word limit to 300. I wasn't planning to use all those words, but I did, heh. The theme was "Higurashi Kagome."

* * *

**Title:** The Thing About Kagome  
**Rating:** PG. Bad guys are all talk.  
**Pairing:** NarakuKagome  
**Genres:** Mild horror, evil, introspective, creepiness.  
**Word Count:** 299  
**Spoilers:** Set soon after the most recent manga chapters; contains a recent character, but no other spoilers.  
**Summary:** Naraku discusses his greatest foe with his newest disciple. It is perhaps the very oppositeness between the two sides that shows Kagome at her most hateful, and Naraku at his most loving.

＊.X.＊

"You don't understand," Naraku says in a low voice, leaning forward slightly. Kagome sleeps peacefully between them, and though the hanyou has looked right at them several times, Naraku is confident in Byakuya's powers of illusion.

Byakuya listens intently, so completely serious he might be faking it.

"You must be wondering why I haven't killed her yet. I'm afraid it doesn't work that way." He looks at her almost longingly, her fragile neck, her expression gone slack and undefended. "Her protections are with her at all times, and I don't mean the idiot dog-hanyou, or that gaggle of hangers-on."

"Are you saying you would fail to kill this human girl?" Byakuya asks, slightly amused.

Without hesitation, Naraku replies, "Yes." His expression is sincere, and somewhat regretful.

"The thing about Kagome," Naraku says, hovering his hand over Kagome's hair, as if barely restraining himself from touching it, "is the same as with all pure things. She can die by lightning—the natural kind, mind you—or by an arrow loosed half-heartedly at a mouse, or in a fire started by the very children she's just saved, but for creatures such as ourselves, she is untouchable."

Byakuya may not believe him, but he plays along. "So how do we kill her?"

Naraku raises an eyebrow. "We don't. We kill her friends."

"Why?" Byakuya asks, nonetheless drawing his pristine sword.

Naraku spares Kagome one last lingering look as he leaves. "I want her to hate me so badly it hurts her every second, and I want her to beg me to release her from that pain. I want her to think of me constantly, as I do of her, and hate her own humanity as I do."

"You have an admirable passion for destruction, Master."

"Destruction? No… I intend to _create_ her."


	12. Unforgiven

This doesn't have the same trappings as the others, as it isn't for a challenge community. Rather, I wrote this because I lost a bet with Numisma. The bet required a 100 word drabble on the subject of her choice, and her choice was "Kaede."

Numisma, I'm sorry that my muses wouldn't let me write anything less twisted. I hope you love me anyway.

* * *

**Title:** Unforgiven  
**Summary:** A child walks the killers' path.

＊.X.＊

He comes to burn incense by her sister's grave. "I'm sorry," he tells her, blaming himself for Kikyou's fate.

Kaede is proud and stony-cold. "It was _his_ fault," she informs Shako, gesturing towards Goshinboku, "so Kikyou-onee-sama killed him."

"I'm sorry," he repeats, slipping his fingers through her hair, under her clothes. Kaede gazes forward stolidly with her remaining eye.

Kikyou, her hero, was a killer. Kikyou the righteous, who shot men down, deservedly so. So it is with little difficulty that Kaede looses her arrow on the man.

No one questions her, and she does not say she is sorry.


	13. Sucker—Punchline

This snagged me second place over at Inuyasha Issekiwa, impressive considering that the theme was "Jokes," and this wasn't even trying to be funny. Well, unless you count the bad pun in the title.

* * *

**Title:** Sucker-Punchline  
**Word Count:** 160  
**Genre:** (bad) Irony, General, some Angst.  
**Pairings:** Implied Kagome/Inuyasha  
**Rating:** PG. Or K+ if you're scared of the big bad MPAA.  
**Summary:** The line between cruelty and humor is paper-thin. And we all know that papercuts are the worst pain.

＊.X.＊

This had to be some kind of joke.

After everything—everything! After the brutal battles for Kouga and Kohaku's shards, after the seemingly endless struggle against Naraku, after her war to admit her feelings to Inuyasha, after everything had been so neatly tied up…

No. No. This wasn't happening. They'd already united the jewel once, it couldn't be done again.

Yet there it was, a very, very tiny shard, gleaming merrily in her hand. Already Kagome could sense shards being tainted, north, south, three in the east, five in the west… Kagome shook, wanting to scream from frustration and cry for the lives that would be lost because of all those shards.

Instead she opted to laugh. If it was a joke, someone had to laugh at it, and why not her. She cackled over the first shard with all of her bitter, hollow soul.

Everyone thought she'd finally lost it, but she knew better, knew she'd finally _gotten _it.


	14. Vertigo

This won mod's choice at iyfic challenge, much to my delight and amazement. The theme was "Rain."

* * *

**Title:** Vertigo  
**Rating:** PG, or K+ if the MPAA asks.  
**Pairing:** Souten/Shippou  
**Genres:** Romance, Love/Hate, and a splash of good old Angst.  
**Word Count:** 200  
**Notes:** Post series. _Very_ post series.  
**Summary:** What we term "vertigo" is not the fear of falling, but the fear of the desire to fall. For a Thunder Beast, it is a long way down.

＊.X.＊

Her storms have been stalking him forever, and the fateful first drops fall almost lazily, yet impossible to outrun. The rain always falls in a straight line, pulled down by forces unseen.

_Thee to me._

His wary glance eludes her, no frightened green eyes lit by her lightning as it was only a few short years ago, but a masterful tease to lure her in closer. She has hounded him so fiercely that the humans call him Stormcloud, but her fury always loses momentum at the sight of his wet, bedraggled state.

Why couldn't he just die like the animal he is, she demands, why did he have to leave her all alone, with no family, no culture, no guidance…

If someone had been there for her, surely, surely it wouldn't have come to this. If she had been raised with any pride, her hand would not brush his hair away so she could kiss him, her heart would not pound like this, she would not need the rain to hide her tears.

"Love me," she commands. "Do it because no one else did."

Her only answer is the thunder, echoing her frustration, and the steady clatter of the rain.


	15. First Time

Boy, does this one have a story behind it. I wrote it for the "Festival" theme at Inuyasha Issekiwa, only to forget to post it before the deadline. After much pleading, I was allowed to ask the members to be let into the contest, which they agreed to. Wouldn't you know I confused the word count, and overshot by 50 words. I'm very grateful to the people at Issekiwa, for being so understanding.

This is the original 250 word version, not the 200 word one that was entered at Issekiwa.

* * *

**Title:** First Time  
**Rating:** PG-13/T. Kind of R/M-ish.  
**Pairing:** Technically none.  
**Word Count: **250  
**Genre**: Horror, Backstory  
**Summary:** Jakotsu would never admit that his first experience was with a woman, or how much he enjoyed it.

＊.X.＊

It was that wild, festival air. Everywhere there were masks and disguises, and people dressed as up to play the part of someone else for a night, but that's what he'd _always_ done. Always he was held back, concealed, playing the part of the good son and the nice boy, so when he saw everyone become who they weren't, he knew it was his chance to become who he was.

He killed her because she had a pretty kimono. He was eleven, and she was thirteen. He was envious of the way all the lovely boys looked at her.

Luring off a girl so used to the attentions of men should have been impossible for a mere boy, but there was something captivating about his eyes, and that silky voice. She had been curious.

He'd been so nervous. Little cuts, not using his full terrible strength, as if asking, '_is this all right_?' The wonderful blood was his answer—this was more than all right, it was what he was made for.

He was clumsy, and killing was harder than he'd imagined. He had to mind the kimono, and girls bit harder than mice. Despite his best efforts, she managed to scream, but he masked it in his laughter and cries of joy, perfect for the festival.

He always remembered the way she looked afterwards, with her gaudy blue eyeshadow tearstreaked down her face. It struck a chord in him, even as he affixed her pin in his well-loved hair.


	16. Devil's Workshop

Written for the Childhood theme at iyfic challenge, where it tied for third place.

* * *

**Title:** Devil's Workshop  
**Word Count:** 249  
**Genre:** Drama, General, mild Horror.  
**Pairings:** Not a one in sight.  
**Rating:** PG-13 (Or T, now) for cruelty to children and animals.  
**Summary:** Idle hands pull the spiders apart.

＊.X.＊

He is not particularly loved, nor is he hated. Really, he's barely even noticed, and that's the way he likes it.

The boy pads barefoot into dark abandoned spaces, and finds an abundance of spiders. He plays with them, enjoying their frightened skitters across his hands, but he always pulls them apart in the end. It's cruel, but not that different from the actions of countless other boys his age. Perhaps the difference lies in the fact that he never quite grows out of it, or the degree to which he enjoys it.

Finally, a pack of boys decide he's not quite low enough to slide beneath their radar. They call him _Kumo no Oni_, the bedeviler of spiders, and give him a bloody nose to let him know how important they are. He doesn't respond like a normal child, but looks at the blood with mixed horror and glee. His blood.

What happens next could be explained by anger—but it isn't anger. Even fear would have been excusable, but this boy isn't even remotely afraid. He's enjoying himself. He beats the lead boy until he stops crying "Mercy!" and turns to the little gang with the blood still running down his face. "You," he says, "will do what I say from now on."

In that moment, he learns that he likes hurting people, and that he likes controlling people. Anonymity is overrated. He forgets the spiders, in favor of better prey.

The spiders do not forget him.


	17. Fortune Favors the Brave

Yes, Aiffe has been gambling again. And losing. But my loss is your gain! So here's a giftfic for The Firefly, AKA Katrina5. The theme she gave me was "Feather."

* * *

**Title:** Fortune Favors the Brave  
**Spoilers:** _HUGE. _"Wind" chapter.  
**Summary:** Memory is a bittersweet victory.

＊.X.＊

Kohaku has three hidden treasures. The shard that sustains his life, his secret memories, and one precious white feather.

He'd taken it thinking he could use it. It would be invaluable to him to be able to take to the air the way Kagura once did. But no matter how he held or tossed it, it remained a tiny, worthless feather.

Yet he kept it.

He liked to run the satiny surface of the feather through his fingers, or idly drag it across his skin, thinking of the woman it had belonged to. She didn't look like his sister, or any other girl he could think of. Kagura actually looked like something manmade, sculpted from thought and ideal, delicate as blown glass. Yet she had clung to her identity more fiercely than anyone else he had known, perhaps because she was afraid she didn't really have one.

Kagura was a woman with something to prove.

Kohaku lets the feather caress his lips, where he is most sensitive, barely conscious of his actions. He would have liked to talk to her, get to know her better. They say that fortune favors the brave.

They lie. Kagura had been brave.


	18. Dove—Feathered Shaft

For the theme at iyfic contest, "Unrequited Love." This took third place.

* * *

**Title:** Dove-Feathered Shaft  
**Word Count:** 231  
**Rating:** Safe.  
**Pairing:** KagomeInuyasha, Kagome+Inuyasha, or Kagome/Inuyasha, depending on how you view it.  
**Genre:** Romance? I-cut-myself-and-die Angst? Anti-fanon, yet oddly pro-canon?  
**Summary:** Eros incites love with his dove-feathered arrows. Naturally, some people are going to get the shaft.

＊.X.＊

They say that the possibility of something makes one afraid, but certainty always brings calm. After all, when the blow is struck, and you lie there dying, what is there left to do? There is no longer an advantage to worrying about it.

Kagome is very calm, these days.

Their eyes meet, and there is understanding. Both are struck, it is done. Kagome follows him because to do otherwise would be to deny a mortal wound. She's heard of people who carry bullets inside them all their lives, pretending to be normal with the constant pain still in them. _I would die for you_, she thinks, but he saves her every time. Saves her with love and tenderness, as he would a _sister_, and never once kisses her in relief.

She's living the fool's dream, she knows, and she loves him enough not to expect anything of him, because love's just cruel like that. And when she wraps herself around him and flies all over the beautiful countryside, she thinks, _yeah, this is enough_. She can be the girl who kisses Superman when he has Kryptonite around his neck, her lot wasn't so bad, was it?

Kagome is calm, and she's happy, because she's found acceptance. She won't say, "I love you, Inuyasha," because she knows he can't respond in kind. It's better for him, better for her. They're happy.

Really.


	19. Thicker than Blood

Entry at Inuyasha Issekiwa, the theme was money. This sort of tied for third, along with everyone else and their dog, but since there was also a tie for second, no third place was awarded.

* * *

**Title:** Thicker than Blood  
**Word Count:** 200  
**Pairings:** Zip, zero, none.  
**Genres:** General, and, um… Cynicism? How _not_ to orphan your child? Drama, then.  
**Rating:** Safe.  
**Summary:** Money trumps blood and water both.

＊.X.＊

Money can't buy happiness, so Inuyasha was told as a child. Not that he was ever able to test the theory, as he never actually had any money.

His mother had had money. When she died, he'd been too absorbed in grieving to worry about a petty thing like that. Her family hadn't.

So maybe it couldn't buy happiness, like they said. Well, it could still buy food, shelter, baths and the like. Shelter he could do without, and hot springs he could find on his own, but there was no substitute for food. Not like anyone'd hire a hanyou, no matter how strong he was.

He came to hate fishing, and came to hate stealing more. These things were all right for once in a while, but were not reliable enough to live on forever. Heart of a boy, body of a drowned sewer rat, isn't that how he'd go down in history?

It's his mother's weakness, that he knows. His father and Sesshoumaru suffered from no such need. His mother made him weak, a defective demon, and left him all alone.

He thinks that it was those moments, starving and outcast, when he began to hate his mother.


	20. Barenaked Necessities

Won third place in the "Friendship" theme at iyfic contest.

* * *

**Title:** Barenaked Necessities  
**Rating:** PG/K+ for permissive parenting  
**Genres:** General, Introspective  
**Pairings:** Mushinanything female, Mirokuanything female  
**Word Count:** 200  
**Summary:** They have good food, good wine, and indiscriminate women. Who needs health?

＊.X.＊

Mushin was a selfish lover, and a worse parent. He did make a fantastic friend, though.

Instead of chastising Miroku for whatever boyish mischief he got into, there was always laughing and encouraging and further plotting. The only thing either of them took seriously was the kazaana, but that was a matter of necessity. Mushin insisted that booze and loose women were also matters of necessity, and they all had a good laugh.

Miroku still can't get mad at the old geezer. He thinks sometimes that Mushin should have been more like a father, and less like a friend, but times were good, and fun was had, and he wouldn't trade those times for anything. He wonders if Mushin had done this mindfully because his life was fated to be short and violent, as sort of a happy send-off. Miroku ate last meals all through his childhood and teens. Everything was made into a reason to live, as if he needed any convincing.

They even have their own secret language, signs to indicate various things about women. To hear them together, it's hard to imagine that they're not the same age.

After all, it's anyone's guess which will live longer.


	21. Solitude

Written for the LJ community inuyashayaoi100. No challenge there, it's just a community for yaoi drabbles.

* * *

**Title:** Solitude  
**Author:** Aiffe  
**Word Count:** 250  
**Genres:** Lime, Angst, Yaoi (duh)  
**Rating:** PG-13/T  
**Pairing:** Miroku/Inuyasha  
**Summary:** Borders are disputed between the territories of loneliness and independent solitude.

＊.X.＊

It's not like that. It's not as if it should matter anyway.

Sango already suspects him of infidelity. Their encounters are humiliating to her. "Is it because I'm too much like a man, that you can't see me as a woman?" she asks, tearful.

How can he answer that without disgracing himself?

"If you breathe a word of this to anyone…" Miroku hisses in Inuyasha's ear, the last strands of mistrust reluctant to release their stranglehold on him.

"Who would I tell?" Inuyasha says, bitter as he's always been for these past few years.

"Sango thinks I'm sleeping with other women," Miroku says, biting back cynical amusement. He kisses Inuyasha, if it can be called that, too relaxed to be a proper kiss, but a completely comfortable and intimate gesture, as his hands roam to more interesting things. "Let her think that."

"Ah," Inuyasha says, a low moan expressing equal parts disappointment and pleasure. "You're as cruel as a woman, Miroku.

"You're a born liar, too—I can tell by the way you swear me to secrecy. You know that _you_ would tell."

Somewhat stricken, Miroku says, "I envy you, sometimes. Living alone, not needing anyone…" If one must be alone, he decides, they should at least have peace and reflection to go with it.

"I'm not alone when I'm with you." Oh, the lies in that. They pull towards each other almost savagely, stranded and utterly isolated on the shores of each other.

Even touching, they are ultimately unreachable.


	22. The Lighter Side of Being a Bastard

Written for the "Secrets" theme at Inuyasha Issekiwa. Make me write the same theme twice, and get odd results. This won Mod's Choice.

* * *

**Title:** The Lighter Side of Being a Bastard  
**Rating: **PG-13/T for naughty words, and authorial drug use.  
**Pairings: **Gag/crack!pairings abound. Implementation of the "fandom bicycle" schtick.  
**Genres:** Parody, Humor, Random Insanity.  
**Words:** 200  
**Notes:** Sort of an in-joke to my last "Secrets" themed drabble, _Hushed_, but can stand alone.  
**Glossary: **Dokkasou are Sesshoumaru's poison claws. Kongousou I believe are the diamond spears Tessaiga shoots.  
**Summary:**And now a public service announcement. Keeping secrets saves lives!

＊.X.＊

Naraku clutched at the kongousou shards lodged in his throat, his breath slow and labored. "Inuyasha," he said between heaving breaths. "I am… your father."

It was then that Inuyasha really lost it. Somewhere between the incoherent cries of rage and a rather melted-looking Naraku, it occurred to him that he hadn't had dokkasou yesterday. Not that new and obscenely timely fighting abilities were new to him, but this was…

Sesshoumaru stood watching him, tears of pride rolling down his otherwise stolid visage. "You have no idea," he said, voice quavering, "the shame your father has endured. What kind of son is unable to melt the faces off his enemies, I ask you?"

"What's with all this 'son' bullshit? Which one of you, if any, is my father?" Inuyasha demanded.

"I just assumed it was me," Naraku said, blinking the poison out of his eyes. "At least ten of the demons I am consisted of had relations with Izayoi… many at the same time!"

"Hmm," Sesshoumaru contemplated. "How many people here have slept with Izayoi?" Sesshoumaru raised his own hand, followed by Naraku, (who also raised tentacles) Jaken, and… Kagome?

Revealed secrets: the #1 cause of suicide in fucked-up families.


	23. Warped

Written for the "Stars" theme at IYfic Challenge.

* * *

**Title:** Warped  
**Rating:** PG/K+  
**Word Count:** 100 + 100 + 100 - 300  
**Genre:** Comedy, Crossover, Slapstick, Silliness.  
**Pairings:** KirkSango, Miroku various crew members, Inuyasha various crew members  
**Notes:** I am going to hell for this.  
**Summary:** Crossover with Star Trek: TOS. Even in the future, men are dogs.

＊.X.＊

James T. Kirk eyed his newest research project. Observation would be required. And experimentation. For science, of course.

"So," Kirk said smoothly, "What do you like to do for fun?"

Sango perked up instantly. "Well, I like to sharpen Hiraikotsu. And practice with it." She paused. "And polish it, too. Let me tell you, this one time—"

"Oh, look!" Kirk exclaimed, accidentally-intentionally slipping on his Universal Translator. "Since you can't understand a word I'm saying, I suppose we'll have to communicate in the universal language of love…" He advanced, hands roaming…

_Slap._

Kirk would be seeing stars for weeks.

＊.X.＊

"Tell me, Inuyasha," Miroku said philosophically as they watched the strangers. "Is it scientifically possible that there is a direct ratio between how many years in the future a girl comes from, and how short her skirt is?"

"Keh. You think too much, Monk."

"Tell me you're not tempted," Miroku said, a predatory gleam in his eye. "They'll be gone by next week, and they think we're exotic."

"For once, I think you're right, Miroku," Inuyasha said, launching off into the air in what he was hoping would be an impressive display.

Thud.

Starships can be a hazard when cloaked.

＊.X.＊

"Let me guess," Kagome said. "Ancient dry well?"

"No," Spock answered tersely.

"Magic Chinese book? Dragon's heart pendant? Rabbit hole? Wish-upon-a-star?"

_Silence._

"Fine, don't tell me," Kagome said in a huff. "I'll just assume that you flew a spaceship at a high-density star at such a velocity that the resulting slingshot effect flung you beyond the speed of light, effectively warping the space-time continuum, and amazingly the inertial dampers were able to combat this force, preventing you from ending up as stains on the walls."

"Impressive," Spock said, quirking an eyebrow.

"I knew my brother's DVDs were good for something."


	24. Daddy's Little Megalomaniac

Written for Inuyasha Issekiwa's "Laughter" challenge. This won first place.

* * *

**Title:** Daddy's Little Megalomaniac  
**Words:** 200  
**Genres:** Humor, pointlessness, exercise in stupidity  
**Pairings:** None  
**Rating:** G, I say.  
**Summary:** The laughter is a family specialty. Ku ku ku.

＊.X.＊

Hakudoushi straightened up, lifted his chin defiantly, and took a deep breath. "Mua-ha-ha," he cackled in a forced way, seeming more embarrassed than evil. "How was that? Am I done now?"

He started as an unseen tentacle smartly spanked him. "Listen!" Naraku hissed. "You're not going anywhere until you get this right." With an exasperated glare, Naraku demonstrated again. "Ku ku ku," a throaty chuckle that would send cold fear into anyone's heart.

Anyone but Hakudoushi, it seemed. "Look, anyone that's worth the laugh is next in line for slaughter anyway," Hakudoushi said cockily. "Who cares if I sound like a dork, as long as they're dead?"

"I made you, and I can des—"

"Yeah, yeah. Fine. Coo coo coo. Is that good enough?"

"How is it that you have no flair for stylized torture? I'd say you took after your mother, if you had one," Naraku said, cupping his head in his hands and shaking it with disappointment. "Once more, with feeling," he commanded the boy.

It was then that Hakudoushi began to hatch schemes of revolt. His father/master was just unreasonable. He'd make him pay for this humiliation. "Ku ku ku," Hakudoushi chuckled to himself evilly.

"Perfect!"


	25. Price

Written for the "Naraku" theme at IYfic Contest.

* * *

**Title:** Price  
**Words:** 250  
**Genre:** I think this one slides by as Horror.  
**Rating:** The drabble is T. The LJ cut is M. (Note: The original LJ cut text read: "Nine out of ten supervillains preferred Naraku to Lex Luthor! The tenth was tentacle-raped.")  
**Pairings:** Naraku/Mrs. Higurashi.  
**Summary:** He signs his name beside Death and the Tax Man's. All pay their debts to him, bill collector, sadistic repo man in the unguarded house.

＊.X.＊

Kagome is trying _so_ hard to find him, so much more interested in his jewel than her own family, that he can't resist, just once. He slips.

Time-slips, that is. Hides his true self, no bone spikes or tentacles or superfluous eyes, just the legendary prince, come to ask for the princess's hand.

"Mother," he says when he sees her, deep voice gone soft, smiling fit to be innocent if one didn't know better. "Didn't she tell you about me? Don't you know that I'm the reason she's always away?

"Oh, you know my name.

"She loves me, you know." He's creeping closer now. Alarms must be going off in the woman's head, but he's calm, and she's still curious. Naraku wonders if the whole family are like cats.

"Do you find me cruel? I assure you…" his fingers trail along her neck, "that's what Kagome likes best about me." Flick and a snap. Too easy. He looks at the fallen woman with something akin to disappointment; he had hoped for some display of miko power, but apparently she wasn't the one carrying it.

Ah well, if at first your prey is boring, try, try again. He slips a Shikon shard under her tongue, her passage to the Underworld, and takes her hand gently. "I will give you many things," he promises, "and also take much away. Do you know who I am now, Higurashi Naoko?"

Her breath comes hoarse and violent, but he discerns one word in it. "Naraku."


	26. Alive

Written for IYficChallege's "Lucky" theme.

* * *

**Title:** Alive  
**Words:** 250  
**Genres:** Angst, Fluff, Romance  
**Pairing:** Sango/Miroku  
**Rating:** PG-13/T; Character death and suicidal thoughts  
**Summary:** Sango wonders just how lucky she really is, but she's not the only one.

＊.X.＊

When she was young, everyone told her how lucky she was to have the leader of the taijiya for a father. Because of that, she could be a warrior, and never have to worry about a marriage she didn't want. Sango was inclined to agree; she was lucky, and she was good at what she did.

When she was sixteen, Sango was given pitying looks, and told that she was one of the lucky ones. Lucky to be alive, lucky to not be in the ground with everyone else she knew and loved. Told she should be happy when her brother had a chance, and told she shouldn't be ashamed for surviving when she became the last.

Some luck. She hated the idea of dying, but hated the idea of being the last of her people just as much, so the two were even in her mind. Sometimes she almost crossed the line.

Today is different from all that, though. Sango wears a stunning kimono of red, chosen because it is the luckiest color to get married in—perfect for a naturally lucky girl like her. It's the red she adorns herself in for the hunt, the red of the blood that she's managed to keep flowing in her veins all this time. Red with hope that she won't be the last after all.

"I'm lucky," she tells the mirror.

"I'm luckier," Miroku says softly behind her. Survivor takes survivor's hand, and for the first time, they actually _feel_ lucky.


	27. Schism

Written for the "First Kiss" theme at yuridrabbles, a multifandom low-pressure LJ community. No deadlines, no prizes, just lots of yuri. (grin)

* * *

**Title:** Schism  
**Words:** 250  
**Fandom:** Inuyasha  
**Pairing:** Kikyou/Kagome  
**Squicks:** Soulcest, necrophilia, temporal mechanics  
**Theme:** First Kiss  
**Summary:** There's a crack in everything.

＊.X.＊

Her heart is quite dead. She has willed it to stir, as she's sure many a paralyzed person has done with their traitorous parts, but to no avail. Hatred was the only thing worth feeling after her resurrection, and purged of that, she is empty.

There's a crack, though. That's how the light gets in.

From inside the wrong person, she watches herself. It is a thing she would not wish on anyone. Her eyes, held wide with her feelings, overflowing from her heart, which is not dead perhaps, but merely _gone_. How could one look at such a thing and not love it, not want to protect it? How could one look at such a thing, and not hate it, not want to lash out and destroy it?

Kikyou does neither. Her nerves are deadened, all save one, the last one.

Kikyou kisses her last nerve to make her disembodied heart race against her cracked chest. It is both a gift and a theft, intolerable and irresistible to both. It is Kagome's first kiss, and Kikyou's last. But then, _first_ and _last_ are matters of linear time, which has little to do with either of them. Already they're gone in the overlaps of time and each other.

Two creatures of separate times and passions who should never have existed in the space of the same century share a moment's breath, and wait for the universe to collapse from this conundrum. Maybe it did. Kikyou isn't really one to notice.


	28. A Short Journey of Self—Discovery

Written for the "Anachronism" theme at Inuyasha Issekiwa. This won first place.

* * *

**Title**: A Short Journey of Self-Discovery  
**Words:** 200  
**Rating:** T-13-ish  
**Genres:** Psychobabble, Shoujo-ai  
**Pairing:** Kagome/Kikyou. _Soulcest!11  
_**Prerequisites: **Fandom Japanese, a mind so open your brain might fall out.  
**Summary: **Time is irrelevant; all roads lead to me, you see.

＊.X.＊

"I am Kagome," Kagome says, as if that made all the difference.

Who are they? The hanyou and the taijiya and the houshi and the gokitsune and the mononoke cat, they don't need names. Then there's the one that labels slide off of, one who is constantly saying "I am," because the world might forget.

"I am. Am-pure-strong-girl-woman-child-student, am the miko who will defeat Naraku."

Kikyou laughs. "Then you are myself."

"I am the girl who defies time. I am myself."

"I am yourself," Kikyou echoes.

Kagome relents, and spends a night in her own bed. Souls mixed, blood mixed, spit swapped, she swills the anachronism in her mouth. It's a bitter feeling to finally discover yourself, only to learn that someone else got there first.

They aren't like lovers, because lovers learn each other's bodies, and they already _know_. Their pleasure is yours-mine-ours, a secret that doesn't count. There's no alienation, no other, save for the fact that neither knows who she is.

"Who are you?" "I am Kagome, am Kikyou, am the girl in your-my arms."

"Do you know something about me? Some secret I lost along the way?" Desperately they search each other.

They find only themselves.


	29. Slip to Stand

For the "Opposites" theme at Inuyasha Issekiwa. This won third place.

* * *

**Title:** Slip to Stand  
**Words:** 200  
**Rating: **T-13-ish  
**Pairings:** Kikyou/Kagome. What! Well, stop giving me themes that are _perfect_ for them, then!  
**Genres: **Angst, Yuri, Drabble that should have been a Oneshot.  
**Warnings:** Soulcest, confusion, character death.  
**Summary:** They don't attract.

＊.X.＊

The difference is between life and death.

How many times Kagome has flirted with it. One false step…

She couldn't have fought Naraku off either.

Kagome isn't sympathetic, not really. She saves her sympathy for the living, where it can do some good.

"You like doing good, don't you," Kikyou says as if to herself. _Say it to me, not to yourself, I'm not you._ _I'm not in your head_, Kagome thinks. _I'm not in your heart._

Kikyou's hand, winding in hers.

_And you're not in mine._

The difference is between love and hate.

"I shot him," Kikyou says, "but you killed him."

The difference is between accident and intention.

"Give me back what you took from me," Kikyou says before kissing her.

The difference is between passion and disgust, between choice and powerlessness.

"I wasn't the first to want him to be human," Kagome says bitterly, turning her head.

The difference is between success and failure.

It is the space between them, infinitesimally vast.

Differences are hard to see between these mirror-imaged girls. But those that can be found are matters of life and death.

Kagome's heart pounds and pounds and pounds. And that can make all the difference.


	30. Hollow Stand

Written for inuyasha100 on LJ. The challenge was a screencap of Kohaku standing in a tree. (No prizes are awarded in that community, but I gave Naraku my shard.)

* * *

**Title:** Hollow Stand  
**Characters:** Kohaku, Sango, Naraku  
**Words:** 185  
**Genre:** Angst, Dark  
**Summary:** It used to be so easy, but he's forgotten how to fall.

＊.X.＊

The wind should be enough to topple him. Only his dead weight roots him to the tree, only his hand reaching giddily out for the trunk holds him against the sway of the locusts' song. He could fall, the way dead things are meant to, and rustle-whisper along the forest floor until the cold snow hushes him.

It is summer, now. The world is green, and his fingernails dig into the bark fit to bleed. He will not cry.

He stiffens when Sango passes under him. She mewls his name like an injured animal, her voice gone soft, cracked and worn like old leather. His muscles flex against their invisible restraints, only his eyes disobey, the tears slipping down his rigid face.

She feels it, whether in the physical sense or some more profound one, and looks up at him at last. The phantom-shadow at her back strikes, kusarigama tracing the old spider-scar.

Naraku looks at him from his own brown-amber eyes. He is joyless, unrepenting. The two share an understanding, and Kohaku quivers to the bone.

The wind should be enough to topple him.


	31. Paternity

For Inuyasha Issekiwa's "father" theme.

* * *

**Title:** Paternity  
**Words:** 160  
**Rating:** T-13-ish  
**Summary:** They betray themselves.

＊.X.＊

Sango had the glazed stare of a trapped animal. "It's yours. It has to be."

The infant she held had no dog ears or claws, but his hair was pure white, and his eyes were red, recalling Inuyasha's demon form.

"I want to believe you, Sango, but even I am not that stupid," Miroku said. If Kagome had been there, she could have told him about a rare lack of pigmentation, and explained that the child was human. But Kagome was not there.

And for Miroku, there was one obvious reason for the baby's looks.

"It was only once," Sango said, hiding her face. "I didn't think this would…. It was only once. Hanyou are supposed to be sterile."

The appearance of the kazaana five years later proved paternity without a doubt, far too late for the outcast wife and her albino son.

Hanyou are indeed sterile, but the imaginings of a jealous man and an unfaithful woman are not.


	32. Mighty

Third place in IYfic Challenge's "strength" challenge.

* * *

**Title:** Mighty  
**Rating:** G  
**Pairing:** ShippouKagome  
**Genres:** Fluff, WAFF, Humor, Cute, Spamfic  
**Words:** 169  
**Summary:** Let's let Shippou tell it his way, for once.

＊.X.＊

…_and he was the strongest of them all. The mighty Shippou stooped from his towering height to pull the helpless maiden into his arms, and gave the fallen hanyou a scowl. "I trusted you to protect her," he chided, "and look at the danger you have left her in!"_

_Inuyasha squinted up with tears in his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Shippou-sama. I have failed you, I don't deserve to—"_

"_Hush, now. It's all right. Just be glad I was here to save you two." With that, he and Kagome disappeared into the sunset, and had eight kits._

Shippou put the brush down, and examined the childishly-scrawled story with great satisfaction. He was just rolling it up, when…

"Kyaaah! Kagome! Inuyasha! It's a really really big bug!" he squealed, running to the safety of the adults.

_Well_, he thought from Kagome's arms, _it'll be like that someday._ He glared impatiently at the oversized locust, which was _obviously_ out to get him. "Someday soon, dammit," he mumbled against Kagome's chest.


	33. A Tenuous Understanding

Second place in IYfic Contest's Kouga challenge.

* * *

**Title:** A Tenuous Understanding  
**Words:** 247  
**Genre:** General, some Angst  
**Pairing:** N/A (Yes. It's the smutty love of Not and Applicable.)  
**Rating:** T-13ish for language and violence to Kouga  
**Spoilers:** Chapter... 374, was it? The _big_ spoiler.  
**Summary:** Doesn't anyone stick to the plan anymore?

＊.X.＊

Kouga had goals. Taking Kagome for a mate. Killing that bitch Kagura, and her master Naraku. Kouga had a plan.

Getting conked on the head with the blunt end of Tessaiga was _not_ part of the plan.

It's possible that what he saw resulted from head trauma. But if it was a dream, it was a true one. They say that the dead and the soulless lie open to the ether winds. Being near-brained by a bloody dog fang might have had a similar effect. He wasn't all here or there, but he saw something, felt something.

He knew her presence, heard her voice, and scented flowers.

"I've sworn I'll see your life end at the tip of my claws, if it's the last thing I do."

"We don't always get what we want."

"Am I dead?"

"Not quite."

"Then… do you need something from me? Like to be forgiven, so you can move on?"

"No. I don't need anything."

"Lucky bitch. Because I'm not forgiving you. You killed my kin."

Images flashed before his eyes: the people he'd killed. Low-lives, villagers, mothers, babies. Then more, more, people he'd ordered his wolves to kill. Too many to count, too many to think of.

"Where are the cubs?" Kagura asked. "Or the females, for that matter. I killed only male wolves.

"Your pack was dead long before I dealt the final stroke."

"I have lived my life without regrets," Kouga said, his voice shaking slightly.

"Yeah… me too."


	34. Legend of the Magic Button

First place winner in IYfic Challenge's "Magic" contest!

* * *

**Title:** Legend of the Magic Button  
**Words: **300  
**Pairings:** Mushin/female anatomy, Mushin/saké  
**Rating:** PG-13 for discussion of "The Birds and the Bees." (No coarse words used, only scientific and silly.)  
**Genres:** Humor, Family Drama, General  
**Summary:** Sex Ed, Sengoku Jidai style. Poor Miroku. Poor Miroku's future girlfriends.

＊.X.＊

Mushin was drunk again.

Okay, perhaps not so much "again" as "still."

The scary part was that he was in the mood to impart wisdom.

"Boy," Mushin said, raising an eyebrow over his drink-reddened face, "have I ever told you about the clitoris?"

"Is that… to the south?" Miroku asked hesitantly.

"Ohoho, you're a quick brat. Yes, it's to the south."

"Ah, it must be a temple, then," Miroku concluded, happy that for once Mushin wasn't talking about something depraved.

"You could say that," Mushin said thoughtfully. "The clitoris… well, I'll tell it to you the way your father told me, when we were lads."

"My father went to the clitoris?"

"Oh, many, _many_ times. It was his second favorite place. Now, as I was saying, the clitoris is a magic button."

"A… magic button?" Miroku repeated, not sure he understood.

"One should be gentle, yet vigorous with it!" he declared, making animated gestures in the air. "It's magic, because it gives men and women what they most desire!"

"Magic…" Miroku considered. "Could it be… if I find the clitoris, will it lift my curse?"

Mushin scoffed. "Don't be stupid, boy."

"But Oshou-sama, that is what _I_ most desire." That and for a certain monk to stop drinking himself into these kinds of states….

"Well, that's because you're a kid. When you grow up, you'll want to press the magic button. It's like that."

"Oshou-sama, you are talking nonsense. If its magic isn't powerful enough to lift my curse, it can wait. And how can a temple be a button, anyway? I bet there is no clitoris, you just made all that up."

Mushin snored loudly.

Well, that was great. Just great. Miroku helped himself to some saké, feeling vexed and confused. His frustration with the clitoris was only beginning.


	35. Liar

Written for Reiku Toukijin, who requested (of someone else) Izayoi/Ryuukossei, "liar," in a meme where you name a character and pairing with a word. Being utterly taken with my wifey Reiku, I of course wrote it for her.

* * *

She has the habit of acting on impulse, and getting in over her head.

Right now she is over her head with a daiyoukai, his slightly rough tawny mane slapping her shoulders. His face, like the _other one's_ face, doesn't always seem to reflect the immediate moment, but remains _passive_ and _immortal_ and _unattainable_. He's no better, she fears. But at least he isn't a liar.

She rages against Ryuukossei for that. _"He who was once my greatest ally, now my greatest enemy."_ She feels a kinship with him for that.

_You loved him too, didn't you? And like me, you saw what a liar he was._

With each thrust, she brings the truth home in her mind. He never would have stayed with her. He wasn't going to save her from _anything_. He didn't love her best, and she would never live in his house. He couldn't even be _careful_ for her sake, as her missed period showed. Ryuukossei was no better. She'd just bit off more than she could chew, yet again.

She has nothing left to lose, and nothing to gain either. She's ruined, and hopes to ruin just one day in that liar's very long life.

＊.X.＊

He can't quite keep the furious quaver out of his voice. "I need two swords forged. From my own fangs, if need be.

Toutousai sits calmly. "Tell me about these swords."

"The first must be a special sword, to cut out my traitorous mistress's dark little heart. The other, a sword powerful enough to kill a great youkai."

Toutousai smiles knowingly. "It shall be done," he says. He makes the first one special indeed, in the appropriate shape, and adds the clause that no one with the intent of harming a human can wield it. The other he does indeed make powerful enough to slay Ryuukossei, but makes compassion a condition of its use.

"If he is a good person," Toutousai mumbles to himself as he forges the swords, "he will live."


	36. Stay

For iyfic challenge's "Loyalty" theme.

* * *

**Title:** Stay  
**Words:** 300  
**Pairing:** Kikyou/Inuyasha  
**Rating: **PG-13/T (Ratings have shippy love too.)  
**Genre: **Romance, Angst, Drama  
**Notes:** I'm aware that the tense is all over the place. It's present tense, speaking _of_ the past, if that makes any sense.  
**Summary:** The world has been cruel to her. Cruelty in, cruelty out. It wasn't that she didn't try.

＊.X.＊

First words out of her mouth: "Why did you betray me, Inuyasha?" His face mirrored hers then, the shock, the resentment. He can claim that it wasn't his claws sending shards of her ribs into her lungs, but she remembers firing that arrow.

Even so, was she disloyal? _Never_, she tells herself.

It wasn't like her only loyalty was to him. Her people, weak and frightened, her sister, who might never grow up, they were her duty. She may have given Inuyasha a promise, but her life was not hers to give; she was bound to serve them to the bitter end. She had struggled to reconcile her two loves with that arrow, tried to give them both a chance. How could she choose sides if she was loyal to them both? She _hated_ him for putting her in that position. But her decision to fire had nothing to do with hatred.

She chose because neither side was hers.

Death, though. _That_ was hers, if nothing else was.

Urasue engendered no loyalty. The reincarnation? She felt no connection to her. And Inuyasha…

_Why?_

Of course she's still loyal to him, but this time it's her own heart she must aim at. She's already frozen in time anyway.

Dogs are loyal. But a dog that does nothing but follow its master around can be considered to be purely self-interested, loyal only for the sake of food and pettings. It's when you tell a dog to stay, and walk away that you test its loyalty. A truly loyal creature will resist serving its own purposes by wandering off or following its master.

Naraku thought they had already betrayed each other. As always, he was the fool who understood nothing of love.

Kikyou waits.

And if Inuyasha is loyal, he is waiting too.


	37. Tantalus' Kiss

For iyfic challenge's "Food" theme.

* * *

**Title: **Tantalus' Kiss  
**Words: **250  
**Pairing:** (older)Rin Sesshoumaru  
**Genres: **Angst, Drama  
**Rating:** PG-13/T  
**Squicks:** Pseudo-incest, for those that don't like Sess/Rin. This is post-series, though.  
**Summary:** All her hungers shall be in vain.

＊.X.＊

She feels like she's always hungry.

Rin tears into the melon like a savage, having no one to teach her better manners by example. Her companions are need-less, want-less. They do not hunger for the briefly burning things that drive her.

Sesshoumaru and Jaken do not eat. Sometimes she suspects Jaken would like to, but doesn't do it because Sesshoumaru doesn't like it. She herself has tried to make that sacrifice, but after pushing herself to the point of pain, and the delirious euphoria that follows, she had woken with a morsel pushed between her lips, and the command to _chew_ and _swallow_.

Sesshoumaru is what some would call utterly unnatural, because one expects certain things from a being with a human shape. But for all intents and purposes, he might as well be a stone, taking nothing, giving nothing. Rin even thinks he might be happier just staying in one place until the moss grows over him.

She's tried to give to him. She's tried to take from him. She's tried to tempt him with her favorite foods, and pressed warm kisses to his uncaring lips. She would have done the latter in his sleep, had he ever slept, but the result was the same anyway. Those dispassioned eyes that calmly waited for her to be finished would give her no more than a sleeping man could.

He remains statuesque, unmovable, as the hunger crawls in her gut.

She tears into her food, never satisfied, and always, always hungry.


	38. Weakness

For iyfic contest's "Gift" theme.

* * *

**Title:** Weakness  
**Words:** 250  
**Genres:** Angst, Drama, Pretentiousness  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** He is raised too well to refuse a gift.

＊.X.＊

She gives him herself. She has nothing else to barter.

"I am but a poor girl," she tells him. "I have nothing left to do but throw myself to the wolves."

"I'm not a wolf," the great dog tells her.

"Guardian spirit," she whispers into his chest. "Take me, take me."

It is poor etiquette to refuse a gift so freely given. The Inu no Taishou has no need for the life of a human girl. He takes her out of obligation.

Once his, he has certain responsibilities towards the girl, not the least of which is to keep her alive. Another is to her happiness. Too late he sees his mistake. He'd blame himself to the end for that, for being soft, for being _polite_.

Her body, that is required of her. He only ever feels guilty when she gives him her heart as well. Always it seems she is the one to give, and he to take. He never even gives his name.

Perhaps it is a mercy that he gives so little of himself. The barren reaches of his heart are a boon to no one, least of all the woman he still loves. Of his passions, this girl bears a child to bring her nothing but pain, and of his death, she manages to carve a feeble life that can not be sustained.

His only gift to her is to take the meager offerings that are all she has, and unfit for him. Gratefully, she accepts.


	39. Hell's Bells

Originally written for iyfic challenge's music theme, but never entered in favor of "Final Act," the next drabble in this collection.

* * *

**Title:** Hell's Bells  
**Words:** 200  
**Pairings:** Kikyou/Inuyasha, Inuyasha/Kagome  
**Genre:** Angst, and, um… sucks-to-be-them?  
**Rating: **PG-ish  
**Summary:** Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

＊.X.＊

She knows their presence sullies the living earth with its decay. Dead things should not walk upon the hallowed ground of the mortal realm.

He says he's alive, that he's not ready. She knows that's not true. She killed him herself.

His blood will not lie. She knows he hears the underworld's call, as she does. She knows what horrors plague his dreams, that he will not speak of under the living sun.

She knows of his love for the girl-that-could-be-her, and knows he is afraid to touch her, lest he spread their taint.

Hell's bells sing to them, ever louder. They've become deafening, but he pretends not to hear them. Without shame or remorse, she pulls him under her thrall—_that's right, kiss me, that's all you ever wanted me for anyway—_and drowns in the sound that shakes her to her ashen bones.

When the symphony of the dead is returned to a muted whisper under her skin, she has failed for the last time. She will never bring herself to exorcise their unclean presence again, though it is her duty.

Later, she will inquire after his health, and be told that he's "alive."

Music to her ears.


	40. Final Act

For iyfic challenge's "Music" theme.

* * *

**Title:** Final Act  
**Genre: **Angst, General  
**Pairings:** N/A (No, _not_ Naraku/Anyone. I wish.)  
**Words:** 300  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warnings:** Ambiguous. You want character death? You got it. You want happy ending? You can have that instead.  
**Summary:** Music starts and the credits roll. The part of Naraku was played by . . .

＊.X.＊

The cicada's song ascends in waves through the thick, swampy air. It is broken only by the throbbing in Sango's skull, evident in the still-swelling bruise along the right side of her face. Her hair's torn loose, and frizzes and flies in her face, and itches with sweat. She looks half fierce, half lost.

_Did we win?_

The cicada's melody builds and builds, threatening to explode in her poor swollen head, and breaks at last in a haunting rattle, only to build again. Her uniform is itchy and sweaty and gritty; Sango doesn't know whether she wants to wash it or burn it. She favors one slightly bloodied leg, dark and oozing, and probably getting infected at this moment.

Or did we…

A storm's coming, that's for sure. Sango thinks of this as being _after_ the storm, after the violent devastation, but the wind picks up and bends the tops of trees, and leaves flicker in and out, flashing their pale undersides in the misted air, like a world embossed in silver.

_There's someone out there._

Rhythmic throb and arrhythmic step, drowned in cicada song and unfallen rain, Sango makes her way towards the figure in the clearing. He makes her jump at first, heart pounding to increase the pressure in her head so that she nearly faints, but his eyes are dark and unclouded. Face of memory, face of the past, once she had trusted this person, but he's played the part of the enemy too many times. She says the name that recalls a more innocent time.

"Hitomi Kagewaki."

The thunder percussion finally arrives, rolling through the symphony's climax.

Neither one moves as the rain draws a white curtain of water over the stage after the final act. Even the cicadas fall silent.

_It's time to go home._


	41. Mistaken Identity

Written for Resmiranda on the spot in LJ, mostly to tease about people who write Sesshoumaru/Kagome to impress her. ONLY I GET TO IMPRESS T3H RES!1oneone

* * *

"I can't _believe_ this," Kagome grumbled.

"I know exactly what you mean," Rin said sympathetically. "Once I went two villages with a guy that had similar hakama, before Sesshoumaru-sama came to get me."

"Do I really… look Inuyasha in the eye that little? How could I just follow some guy with similar hair!" Kagome moaned.

"Take that back!" Jaken shrieked. "How _dare_ you compare Sesshoumaru-sama's curtain of magnificent silken strands to… ah, what was I saying?" he muttered dreamily, offense seemingly forgotten.

"Yeah," Kagome agreed, entranced at Sesshoumaru's hair's gentle swooshing. "It really is much better than—oh, what am I saying! We have to go back and find Inuyasha!"

"Go, then," Sesshoumaru invited, still walking a bit stiffly from the shock of having Kagome leap onto his back, having confused him with Inuyasha.

Kagome hesitated, but as Sesshoumaru drew further away from her, the forest seemed to come alive with glowing eyes. Eyes that belonged to hungry things. Kagome shuddered. "Sesshoumaru…ah, san! Sama!" she quickly corrected, under Jaken and Rin's twin glares. "Please, just escort me to him! Or at least stop going the wrong way! Wait! Wait for me! I'm tired, you know!"

Speeding up slightly, Sesshoumaru wondered why he was a magnet for every shrill thing in Japan. Or maybe it was the other way around, like a dog whistle. Regardless, he decided to make a side trip to see Toutousai. If that old man could make a muzzle to stifle even Ah-Un's ear-splitting pitch, imagine what he could do for these three!


	42. Artificial

Originally composed for iyfic challenge's "Light" theme, but that community seems to be on hiatus. May the challenge live again soon!

* * *

**Title:** Artificial  
**Words:** 300  
**Pairing:** Inuyasha/Kagome  
**Genre: **Romance, Angst  
**Rating: **PG-ish?  
**Summary:** It's too bright, and it's too late.

＊.X.＊

Their time in a world they could share ended in a flood of pink light, and a foolhardy wish.

He calls her name sometimes in his sleep, only to wake himself with the harsh sound of his own voice. His fangs are too sharp, _he tastes blood_, the city lights are too bright, _blinding, squinting, stumbling_, the sounds too loud, _buzz buzz roar beyond sense or reason_, and the air too toxic,_ try not to breathe, try until the lights dim and the sound muffles and—_

She answers when he calls her name, but he never hears her over the din.

Kagome's wish had been simple, it had been _his_ wish. He who had desired to see her through the clarity of youkai eyes, drown in her scent, protect her with unrivaled power. And he had promised to stay with her, so—

The air washes over him in hot, poison-scented waves, and he feels dizzy. In the press of the summer night, streetlights squint through the haze from below, sharp as an arrow to his eyes. Kagome cuts his hair—leaving enough to curl her fingers in because she loves that—and dyes it ask-no-questions black. She combs the wet locks over his slightly pointed ears, as he covers his nose and mouth with both hands, clenching his eyes shut, burned by the dye fumes.

_It wasn't like that. I wished this because I didn't want to see you suffer anymore._

"We have to get out of here, Kagome."

"But I have school to finish, and oh, my family, and the well doesn't—"

_This can't kill you, I _saved_ you! You didn't belong there, fifty years from your time, an outcast... where else was there for us to go?_

"Somewhere far away... The lights are too bright here, Kagome."


	43. Scraps of Mist

Once every so often in writing, one looks at one's own work and says, "I can do better," and re-writes from scratch. And once in a blue moon, one looks back at that first draft and thinks, "That wasn't as bad as I remembered." That's pretty much what this is. A first (and unfinished) draft of "Lost to Mist," which is why it has essentially the same plot. Some might be interested to see the same author's different takes on the same basic concepts.

* * *

_Ring around the rosy…_Halo around the rose-colored soul, once holy, but now broken into too many barbed shards to ever be pieced together, razor-sharp and dangerous.

"Alike souls, no?" Kikyou asks.

__

Ashes, ashes.

Kikyou is a wind-blown cloud, is smoke, is drifting ash, is the dirt to press dead things into nothing, is the hand-sculpted urn, curving a resolute line between soil and ash, and is the _kikyou_ flowers pressing up unforgettable blue at the whitened sky.

__

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly…

Swallowed a soul, swallowed a girl, a girl who screamed life inside her, and brought awareness to her deadened flesh. She can't contain this. Midoriko has a fiercer claim on life than she can bear. She stains her hakama a darker red, as though she were alive again and not barren.

__

I guess she'll die.

The unbearable weaknesses of life come like welcome deaths to her, small ash-cloud holding tightly to the idea of life. She slips away from who she is.

Inuyasha? She knew him once. Tall guy, right?

She'd thought she was stronger than this.

…maybe he had dark hair….

Midoriko accepted this. Midoriko wanted this. Not once did Kikyou question _why_.

Maybe "Inuyasha" was the dream-creature nibbling at her ear.

"You are the most beautiful thing I have seen in three hundred years," Kohaku tells her, though that's not Kohaku's expression. Poor wretched thing, possessed too many times before, and too open to the winds on the ether.

Who doesn't exist, the girl you can't see, or the one who doesn't know who she is anymore?

__

And we all come tumbling down.


	44. Coming of Age

Done for Quirkyslayer's Anon Fic meme, where everyone writes snippets for her to guess. This was done in a few minutes with the threat of losing the computer hanging over my head, but I think it's kind of funny just the same.

Takes place AU of 465, because that chapter slaughtered all my plot bunnies.

* * *

"You're looking good," Inuyasha tells Kohaku. Kohaku knows that his welfare has become something of a communal concern, and has learned to tolerate being asked "Are you all right?" a thousand times between dawn and sunset.

"Yeah," he answers, not really paying attention.

"I mean it. You're getting so big, too. I was starting to wonder if you'd grow at all."

Kohaku smiles a little, knowingly. "I'm almost all grown up, right?"

"You are. I'm glad."

"Almost..." Kohaku begins hesitantly, "almost a man. Perhaps someday soon I will be man enough to court Kikyou-sama."

"Ki--Kikyou?" Inuyasha stutters, too shocked to be angry.

"Well, you weren't doing anything about it," Kohaku says, a grin spreading over his face. "One way or another, Kikyou-sama will be happy. Consider the competition on."


	45. Tender

For iyfic contest. Theme: "Hair Care." Won first place, to my delight.

* * *

**Title:** Tender  
**Words:** 100  
**Genre:** Angst?  
**Summary:** She tends to him.

＊.X.＊

Sticks and twigs. Bugs. Long after the initial splashes of blood had dried and been removed with a stiff brush, she still managed to find all sorts of nasty things there.

There, there. Flow free again. Ah, what a hypocrite she is.

How many snarls, how many snapped teeth in precious combs, how many long, shameful walks back to her village with white strands tightening around her fingers, how much would it take before she gathered her courage and removed that arrow?

Hope, desire. Sorrow. All sorts of nasty things she finds there.

Such is the fate of the tender of all things forlorn.


	46. Respect

Written for iyfic contest's "Vigil" theme. Won nothing because Aiffe is a ditz and missed the deadline. Poo.

* * *

**Title:** Respect  
**Words:** 198  
**Rating:** So clean you could fuck on it. Whoops.  
**Pairing:** Inuyasha/Kikyou, hardstyle.  
**Squicks:** Title. Kikyou gets none by the characters, and Kagome gets none by the author.  
**Spoilers:** "Light"  
**Summary:** The opposite is true, too. It's always brightest before the dusk.

＊.X.＊

He's never been the solemn, religious type. So he doesn't clap his hands or burn incense, or really have any idea how to go about praying for her soul. But he misses her, and that's enough. His silence holds vigil for her.

"_Inu-ya-shaaa, come on already, you're lagging behind!"_

"_Inuyasha, don't you want anything to eat?"_

"_He's been like that all day. Isn't he over Kikyou yet?"_

It's so very simple. Kikyou is dead, (if she'd left a body it wouldn't be cold yet, but yes, she's dead) and Kagome is alive. That's how it is. Life goes on, and the dead don't. He knows this.

"_Hehe, Kagome'll get him back to his old self in no time."_

"_Cheer up, Inuyasha. It'll be all right."_

Inuyasha's about the only one keeping his peace in this vigil. Even he slips sometimes.

Kikyou had been worth more than that, he thinks.

"_Sometimes I think about Kikyou and how she—ooh, look, a butterfly! What a pretty day."_

Kikyou is dead and Kagome is alive.

"_He's been so standoffish lately. You should sit the big lug."_

"_Nah, he'll come around soon on his own."_

But that doesn't make Kagome better company.


	47. Katana

Entry in iyissekiwa's (now on LJ) "weapon" theme. This got second place, but I don't mind losing to _you_, Reiku-dearest. You can be on top so long as I get to be beneath you. .:eyelash flutter:.

* * *

**Title:** Katana  
**Words:** 200  
**Genre:** Aiffe-reads-into-things-too-deeply-and-people-tell-her-so, Angst.  
**Pairing:** Kohaku/Kagome? Suuure, Squinty.  
**Summary:** With such lovely lines, he simply begs to be wielded.

＊.X.＊

"You will be my right-hand man," Kohaku's father told him, although back then the boy couldn't hold a sword without shaking.

For his father, he would become deadly. But when a man dies, his sword becomes masterless.

Worse yet, weapons can be stolen and turned against their masters.

"You will be my instrument," Naraku told him, though Kohaku still had tears in his eyes.

He rested in Naraku's sash for some time, sheathed, sharp, ready. Naraku marveled at how his prowess grew with every battle, though missed how his eyes went dull. A fine sword must be used scrupulously, or one will ruin its spirit. Mechanical skill notwithstanding, the boy that loved and wept was blunt from use by the time he was so carelessly dropped in a moment of distraction.

Kohaku loved his next master devoutly. She was a kind master, restoring him from his many battles, burnishing his blade of a soul until it shone, and promising to only use him once. One final fight, in which he would of course be broken. He didn't mind. He would have liked for her to have been his last master.

But before the end, Kikyou had bequeathed him to someone.


	48. Bliss

Written for iyfic contest on 10/10/05. I had completely forgotten that I'd written this. The theme was "Ghosts," and this came in third.

* * *

**Title:** Bliss  
**Words:** 250  
**Pairing:** Can be seen as Inuyasha/Kagome  
**Summary:** What you don't know can't hurt you.

＊.X.＊

Long ago, Kagome heard some theory on the supernatural, saying that ghosts were not the lingering dead, but holes through which other times could be seen. That's why they do the same things over and over, and move furniture to previous arrangements. Kagome doesn't believe that anymore. She saw through a hole to the past, and they were the most alive people she'd ever known.

And if it were really like that, wouldn't her family object? But Mama just sets another place at the table, saying, "I love you, Kagome" without quite looking at her, though Kagome already filled herself up in the feudal era. And Souta just loves his inu-no-oniichan, though he sometimes berates her for leaving him all alone.

So she does what she's always done, eats at the same table, sleeps in the same bed, except when she's away down the well of bones. And when she passes, the candles at the little shrine disappear one by one, and the world goes back to the way it should be. Souta begs her to stay, and Mama tells him he mustn't say that, because they love her, and Grandpa prays for her happiness.

No, not happiness. Peace.

The white ghost comes out from the well, and tells them how she's doing. Kagome stands by his side, pleased at how well her family has taken to him. He won't tell her that they can't see her.

She doesn't know that she fell to her death on her fifteenth birthday.


	49. In Good Time

Wow, I thought I'd posted this ages ago. Originally composed 08/28/05 for iyfic contest's "Mama Higurashi" theme. Won third place.

* * *

**Title:** In Good Time  
**Words:** 250, not including breakers  
**Rating:** T-13-ish  
**Genre:** Suspense, Horror, Dark, Gen  
**Squicks:** Character death  
**Summary:** Cause the future to safeguard the past.

＊.X.＊

"Wake up, darling."

"Uhn... Mama." Kagome's face melts into a smile as she awakens to her mother gently watching over her.

"I made you breakfast."

"Okay."

"And a lunch to bring to your friends."

"Oh, they'll like that. Not like they'll eat my cooking..."

"And packed your bag with fresh clothes, and restocked the first aid box."

Kagome fairly beams as she stretches out into the new day. "Thanks Mama, you're the _best_."

＊.X.＊

She doesn't even have a grave.

No one mourns her.

No one can even tell that she's gone.

They didn't know _what_ they'd hit. Some sort of creature, all tentacles and eyes... but Souta was okay, and that's all that mattered, because they'd just keep going, and—

That's when it came through the windshield, and dragged him _out_. She remembered screaming and screaming, and oh, if it could do _that_ to her husband, what chance did anyone have, who would pick up Kagome...

It was hard and sunny and gritty, the road only a little slick with blood, and she came at the thing with a tire iron, while Souta cried in his hiccupy, baby panic.

She was brave, and she was alone. That's why he took her, because he couldn't keep up a pretense to another adult who knew the person he copied. But no one really knew who Mrs. Higurashi was.

And no one missed her.

＊.X.＊

She watches Kagome leave, and waves.

She knows what she did to Kagome, back then.

"Bye-bye, Mama!"

"Bye-bye, Kagome-chan."


	50. The Face

Entry in iyfic contest's "Memory" theme. Also, 50th drabble, w00t!

* * *

**Title:** The Face  
**Words:** 198  
**Genre:** Family Drama  
**'Ships:** No.  
**Summary:** Some things are worth remembering. Others can't be forgotten even if one tries. Sometimes they're one and the same.

＊.X.＊

It feels strange standing there. He plays with the thought: _my father_—nothing. Not even on his grave. Not a shadow. Not a smell, or a feeling, or an association. Not even anger. Just...nothing.

It's not as if Inuyasha isn't marked by his parentage. Who his father was should be more important to him than most. But he doesn't have a memory to his name, and Sesshoumaru isn't sharing. It's not like they could reminisce, and Inuyasha could get the feel of his father by proxy. In fact, Inuyasha wishes he'd known his father quite a bit less than he wishes he'd never met his brother.

Look at him. Arrogant prick. Ready to kill his own little brother over some idiotic sword he wasn't meant to have and can't even use. And all on about Father this and Father that. Like knowing father's face makes him better. Inuyasha isn't jealous. If Sesshoumaru turned out that badly, Inuyasha can only conclude that his father was equally unbearable.

As he severs his older brother's arm with their father's heirloom, he thinks: _I don't want to know the man who spawned monsters like us._

Sesshoumaru stops first, picturing Father's disapproving glare.


	51. Like a Virgin, Only Not

For iyfic challenge's "First Time" theme. Won first place, huzzah!

* * *

**Title:** Like a Virgin, Only Not  
**Words:** 249  
**'Ships:** Could be. Not telling.  
**Squicks:** Everything consensual.  
**Rating:** PDTTS for "Please Don't Take This Seriously."  
**Originality:** No.  
**Summary:** Remember fanon!pornstar!Kagome and fanon!innocentchild!Inuyasha? They finally meet.

＊.X.＊

When they kissed it was awkward and fumbling, neither seeming to know where to put their lips or what to do with their noses. Hesitantly, their cautious pecks grew into longer, deeper kisses, and Kagome moaned.

"Oh," she said, "this feels amazing. It's like it's for the first time all over again!"

"Wha?" Inuyasha grunted, jerking back. "You mean this isn't your..."

"Wow." Kagome whistled. "I thought you knew. I mean, it was pretty obvious about that thing with Kouga."

"You," Inuyasha sputtered, "gave up your honor to that...that boorish troglodyte? _Him_?"

"Oh, heavens no," Kagome said with a dismissive wave of her hand, and running full speed over the wave of relief that came over Inuyasha's face continued: "I mean, I'd been screwing Miroku for months. He _is_ dying and all that. Don't you just feel sorry for him?"

"Not anymore! So you just gave Miroku a pity fuck, no saving yourself for marriage or anything?"

"It's not like there was anything to save by that time."

Inuyasha looked at her seriously. "Kagome. Who _was_ your first?"

Kagome tapped a finger thoughtfully on her chin. "That's tricky. Do girls count? Because Sango—"

"I don't want to hear this."

"And Kikyou. Whoo-ee! She gave me a reason to be jealous, how can anyone compete with _that_! You'd know, right?"

"No! I wouldn't! Kagome, I—"

"And this one time, when you were sleeping, I got bored and borrowed Tessaiga."

At this, Inuyasha finally cried, stricken. "Tessaiga? My love?"


	52. Echo

Entry in iyfic contest's "Spooks" theme. Won first place, the only place in that round.

* * *

**Title:** Echo  
**Words:** 250  
**Genre:** Spooky!  
**Theme:** By the skin of my teeth. Also, see Genre.  
**Summary:** Knock on the glass, it won't make a sound.

＊.X.＊

Kagome cuts her fingers on her, but she remains shattered and unconcerned. She watches, steady, distant, as Kagome tries to reach her, and only asks one question, though she breaks it threefold. "Would you really?

"Save me?

"Even though I will never thank you?"

Kagome's answer is something Kanna understands—painless. "Always."

The scene fades, and Kagome remembers: what a stupid fairy tale. A soul too large to be devoured? Kanna's mirror cracked? Why that, when a delusion fits so much better.

"I would have, anyway," Kagome says. How long has it been? Her body must be gone by now.

"If you saw everything, you'd know that. I always tried. For Kagura. For Kikyou." Those two are probably better off than she is.

Kagome's mind races. Why was she the only soul to survive? Was she somehow stronger? Doubtful. Did Naraku order it? If he did, he's made no use of it for months. Did Kanna for some reason desire it? At that Kagome could laugh. Why would Kanna want a deluded spook in her mirror? There's no salvation there.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and all that. It's easy to think that Kanna would yearn for emotion. But Kanna isn't part of nature; Kagome is. It is Kagome that abhors the vacuum, that wishes and dreams things into Kanna even as she lies at her mercy.

Seeing the truth, Kagome feels first disgust, then pity, then envy. How desirable it seems to hold and divide the light of others' emotions like a glass prism, while shedding none of her own.


	53. Heist

For the IYFic Contest "Future" theme. This won third place.

* * *

**Title:** Heist  
**Words:** 173  
**Summary:** Time comes like a robber in the night.

＊.X.＊

Where there should be sobs, there is only a dry, disbelieving rattle in her throat. "How long? How _long_?" She actually pounds her hand on the rickety wooden shelf as she says this, sending glass bottles wobbling, tipping over, liquid splashing at the corks.

"Onee-sama," is all Kaede can say, awestruck despite her matronly bearing. She can't help but feel like a child again, looking at that perfect young face, the face of her elder sister.

"You're not," Kikyou insists petulantly. "You're not Kaede."

"Please, Onee-"

"Liar." She won't even look at Kaede now, but stares at some indeterminate point in the other direction, her eyes narrow and furious, her lips pressed together fit to bruise.

"Kikyou," Kaede forces herself to say, the name alien and bitter in her mouth, "I could never lie to you. You made me promise that time, when we traveled back from the Abe river, and my hands were burned--"

Kikyou falls abruptly to her knees, dust where her tears should be. "Too cruel," she whispers. "To take even a dead girl's future away."


	54. Once Touched

For IYFic Contest's "Winter" theme.

* * *

**Title:** Once Touched  
**Words:** 192  
**Summary:** He shouldn't touch what he can't hold.

＊.X.＊

It's at that time when life hangs by its finest thread. The wise beasts feign death, and the unwise approach it, as the harrowing months go on. Even the trees seem to barely endure, their bared bark held stiffly against the sky.

And it's at that time when Sesshoumaru wishes above all else that he had something more to give her.

She reaches out from where she's huddled when he stretches out his hand, but her hands still feel warm to him, although they're not. He may look like a man, or sometimes like a dog, but he's neither, he's a youkai, and his flesh fears no winter. More willing than the trees, he embraces it. Rin needs more than that from him.

He gives her his robe, knowing that it can warm her better than he can.

She follows him, barefoot on the ice until her footprints are bloody. She lies close to him as if she could get warmth there--no, as if she could warm him, and licks the fine ice crystals from his eyelashes.

Sesshoumaru knows that he has wronged her, by trying to care for her when he had nothing to give.


	55. The Other Side of Fratricide

Written for iyfic contest's theme, "Heart." Won third place. Normally I only post things under 300 words here, but despite the length, this felt drabble-y to me.

* * *

**Title:** The Other Side of Fratricide  
**Words:** 464  
**Spoilers:** Pretty much takes chapter 493 and runs with it.  
**Summary:** In battles like this, it's the heart that kills you.

＊.X.＊

Inuyasha was stunned for several minutes. "If he hates me," he said, "then it doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?" Kagome asked, at his shoulder.

Inuyasha turned to her, a dull sense of amazement coming over him. "That I won. All those times. I thought he was holding back."

"Why would he?"

"I don't know. Because he's my half-brother? Some kind of loyalty to our father? Even when he was trying to kill me, I thought he was only testing me, that he could have beaten me any time if he really wanted to."

"You fought pretty hard for someone who didn't think it was real," Kagome pointed out, thinking of Sesshoumaru's empty sleeve.

"He wouldn't have accepted anything less from me. For me to not give everything I had would have been an insult to him. Besides. It wasn't like I thought I could really hurt him. He's Sesshoumaru." Shock, then sadness washed over Inuyasha as he saw Sesshoumaru in this new light, a Sesshoumaru that tried to beat him and failed, who had been gravely injured by him and was still helpless to do anything about it. He seemed fainter somehow, shorter.

Kagome smiled. "I know why you won," she said.

"Why?"

She put her hand on his chest. "Your heart. You have this beautiful human heart, and he's heartless. So no matter how many times you fight, you'll always win."

＊.X.＊

_You and I...are destined to fight until we die._

＊.X.＊

"It does not make sense," Sesshoumaru said. "I am more powerful than that halfbreed. I should be able to defeat him effortlessly."

"You could have killed him as an infant," his mother said nonchalantly, examining her claws. "Wouldn't have been hard."

"That would have been meaningless," Sesshoumaru said dismissively.

"Yeah... he was cute when he was little, wasn't he?"

Sesshoumaru stared off in the opposite direction, showing no inclination to answer that.

"Or, you know, you could have ripped his arm off, sword and all. He certainly had no qualms about that sort of thing."

"I won't sink to that kind of tactic."

"That time when he was possessed by his own youkai blood, you could have just left him to suffer and die. That should've been easiest of all."

"It was not."

"Sesshoumaru, child. I know I told you that you must first understand the value of life before you can take it. But I did not say it would be easy." She put her hand on his shoulder. It was somewhat awkward, but he accepted it without protest. "End this feud. It gives me no joy to see you continue this way. Your heart will always stop you, never allow you to finish what you've started, and Inuyasha... He is cruel, and thoughtless, and acts without empathy."

Sesshoumaru turned his fierce stare on her. "What are you implying?"

"Because you have a heart and he does not, you will lose every time, Sesshoumaru."


	56. The Saviors

Written for iyfic contest's theme, "Eyes."

* * *

**Title:** The Saviors  
**Words:** 250  
**Summary:** Kikyou's siren song.

＊.X.＊

In the end, she sits watching Kohaku, and it has ended happily. But it is only bearable until he turns, and she is forced to look him in the eye.

"Isn't it what big sisters do? Of course I ought to keep you from all harm."

"But I am human, Aneue. Love was never meant to transcend nature."

"Why? Why would you live for her, but dream only of dying with me?"

Those are the words they do not say.

They know the answers already.

Sango blinks first, but refuses to admit she has done wrong.

And Kohaku continues ever forward with a body full of life, but the eyes of a dead man.

＊.X.＊

In the end, she sits watching Inuyasha, and it has ended happily. From afar, he fills her with desire, and her mind traces back over his body and hers intertwined. But up close, she remembers why they always make love in the dark. There is love in his body, but hate in his eyes.

"I did it out of love. I wanted to give you a place where you belonged."

"I don't know how to live as a human, and I don't know how to live in this world. I can do nothing now but rely on you."

"Why? Why would you give up your strength for her, but not for me?"

These are the words they do not say.

They know the answers already.

Kagome puts out the lights, and smiles in the dark.

And Inuyasha continues ever forward with a weakened body, but the eyes of a demon.


	57. Never an Easy Way

Written for Numisma's spam post.

**Title:** Never an Easy Way

In the depths of her heart, Sango knows: it would be easier to love him.

It's easier to suffer through hard times with someone to hold on to, someone to make her feel loved and loving. It's easier to be worn down, easier to learn to enjoy his advances, easier to tell her friends that it's all right, that she's going to be okay.

Easier to lose Kohaku that way too, because now he isn't _everything_.

And best of all, people will love her for loving him. They'll admire her self-sacrifice, how she dared to get so close to a man under a death sentence after all that had happened to her. They will hold her and tell her she is good. It'll make losing him so, so easy.

Even though, yes, she knows, every time he opens the kazaana he is dying for their easy little lie.

Sango doesn't recognize herself anymore.

Because when she was young, it would have been easier to abstain from fighting on account of being female, but she fought twice as hard to spite that. And it would have been easier to die beneath the dirt by Naraku's castle, but she clawed her way back. She never shied from the path of thorns, and was always coming home bloody.

She always learned the hard way; always. She wouldn't be satisfied that the pot was hot unless she was sucking a burned finger. She fought hard; fell hard; cried hard, tried hard and fought again.

Sango is _not_ a coward.

But she doesn't know this woman.


	58. Mirage

For iyfic contest's "Happiness" theme.

* * *

**Title:** Mirage  
**Words:** 381  
**Note:** Miroku is around thirteen in the first segment. I just realized it seemed wildly OOC if you didn't know that.  
**Summary:** The difference between paradise and water you can drink.

＊.X.＊

"What is it women really want?" a young Miroku asked Mushin, rubbing a bright-red cheek.

"The same thing you or anyone else wants," Mushin said, a twinkle in his eye.

"Sex with women?" Miroku asked rather dubiously.

Mushin chuckled. "Well...sometimes. But most of the time, they just want what they think will make them happy."

"Sometimes...?" Miroku began to repeat, but Mushin cut him off. "What did you do to that poor girl?"

"I lifted her skirt, and told her she had childbearing hips," Miroku said, seeing nothing wrong with this.

Mushin shook his head. "And why would any of this lead her to believe doing anything with you would make her happy?"

"I dunno," Miroku said uncomfortably. " 'Cuz?"

Mushin shook his head even more emphatically. "You're lucky she didn't strike lower. Leading girls on is a fine art. There has to be just enough of a hint of an invitation that she knows what you're about, but enough left blank that she can fill in with her own happy fantasies."

"And what," Miroku said haltingly, "if you do get her, and she isn't happy with you?"

Mushin only shrugged. "We don't actually have any bearing on a woman's happiness. But they like to believe that we do, a misconception that can be used to further our own happiness."

＊.X.＊

What was it about a girl crying that just made men want to wipe away their tears and protect them from all the world's cruelty?

No...Miroku was immune to the tears of most women. But then, most women he met were just as manipulative as he was, and it takes one to know one, as the saying goes. Sango was different. When he first saw her crying, it was as if her heart had been torn out of her. He couldn't go through the motions of putting his hand on her shoulder and comforting her. It wasn't that kind of pain. He was terrified to even touch her.

As he got to know Sango, Miroku realized he didn't want to just dangle the old familiar lie in front of her nose. He wanted to really make her happy.

And he realized, for all his skill in making women believe that he could, he didn't have the faintest idea how.


	59. Spidersilk

This one seems kind of long because of how spread out it is, but it's more or less drabble-length. Written for the "Hair" theme at iyficcontest. Won third place, then went on to win first at the IYFG for Best Darkfic, second quarter 2007.

* * *

**Title:** Spidersilk  
**Words:** 379  
**Genre:** Horror, I think.  
**Notes:** I swear it, this time I am not bashing Kagome. Naraku's opinions are just that.  
**Also:** Deja-vu, anyone?  
**Summary: **A single strand.

＊.X.＊

Kagome feels her chest tighten; that slow, sure build to terror that has already raced past panic and is clawing somewhere under her skin but finding no outlet. She turns back the way she came, but sees only darkness, a seething, glimmering, end-of-the-world sort of darkness.

Her lip

trembles

and she—

＊.X.＊

Naraku twists the black strand in between his fingers, coiling it and slipping it effortlessly from one digit to another like a snake. He temples his hands with the strand caught in them, pulls a loop over to the other hand and draws his hands just far enough apart that he can look through them.

＊.X.＊

Eyes, eyes on her. Inuyasha's, Sango's, Miroku's, Shippou's, Kirara's...and one more. She whimpers, and someone's hands are on her, but they somehow don't seem to reach her. Her friends are fading, losing color and depth. She screams

and screams

knowing what a strange sight they must see, a girl taken by madness and screaming her lungs hoarse, unharmed in the light of day.

＊.X.＊

"A curse?"

"A hex."

"To kill her?"

"Eventually."

"What are you using on her?"

Naraku smiles. "Myself."

Byakuya nods.

＊.X.＊

Weight. A great, terrible weight pressing on her, pushing her to the ground. A sensation like jets of water falling, or hard, wiry fingers pinching. It doesn't feel like an assault, but larger than herself, like seasickness.

She looks up into the sky

and it is not bright

even though it is daytime.

She is fragmented, split, like Midoriko's soul, shrouded in darkness

and still shining.

＊.X.＊

Naraku pulls, and the hair stretches, snaps, and recoils.

＊.X.＊

_Do you see me?_

"Yes."

_Do you see _as_ me?_

"Yes."

_I will show you something._

And he does.

＊.X.＊

Naraku doesn't like to kill with his own hands, but if he must, the results are pristine. The only mark on her body was the place where he had leaned too close and exhaled on her ear—there, the skin is marred as if frostbitten.

"Don't you regret it?" Byakuya asks. "It's too easy that way. Isn't it better to play with their hearts, instead of stopping them with cheap magic?"

"I regret nothing," Naraku replies. "I saw a chance, and I took it. After all, she was no Kikyou."

That hair he keeps wrapped around his finger, unbroken, unused.


	60. O Come All Ye Faithful

Written for inuyasha et al (LJ community)'s "New" theme. Won second place, despite rampant OOC.

* * *

**Title:** O Come All Ye Faithful  
**Pairings:** Miroku/Kagome and the trampled remains of canon  
**Rating:** T-13-ish  
**Words:** 250 on the dot  
**Notes:** In some small way this is for Reiku, who always wanted Inu/Kag and the D word in the same fic.  
**Summary:** "Perhaps it is time for something new"—it is easy enough to make that determination for another.

＊.X.＊

He can't say he'd expected her, much less streaking a heavy application of makeup with tears. Naturally, Miroku had the sort of manners that he didn't let on to his surprise, and only after he'd greeted her as though he'd just seen her yesterday, taken her to his house, and served her tea did he finally ask in a nonchalant way, "So, what brings you 'round these parts?"

Kagome looked at him as through a haze, and laughed. Miroku couldn't help but cringe at that laugh, it seemed so bitter and hollow. "He won't look for me here," she said.

"I see."

"You'll take his side in this, of course."

"Of course," Miroku echoed, his body doing nothing of the sort.

"And you'll..." Kagome said, coming closer to him as if she hadn't meant to, as though she just happened to be pulled that way, "think less of me."

"Never, Kagome-sama." They were too close now, too, too close, and Kagome's eyes lit with a kind of hunger, the hunger of a woman who has known love and tenderness and needs to feel it again—before looking down very suddenly at what must have been an utterly fascinating tatami mat.

"I am with Sango, you know."

"I know," she said. "You cheat on her."

"Not with you."

"She deserves better," Kagome said, "far better than you," and she kissed him and he kissed her back and in that instant they both knew everything they had worked for was over.


	61. For What Ails You

Written for iy wiltedrose's "Flower(s)" theme. Won second place.

* * *

**Title:** For What Ails You  
**Author:** Aiffe  
**Rating:** G  
**Genre:** Introspective.  
**AU/Canon:** Canon, somewhere in Kikyou's wanderings.  
**Words:** 283  
**Summary:** The healer is always the last to be healed.

＊.X.＊

At some point, the girl had taken to Kikyou, and Kikyou did not object. She was always silent, but Kikyou had come to realize that she listened, so at first she talked just to fill the silence, then there was a communication of sorts, the girl communicating with gestures and broad smiles.

Kikyou wasn't actually knowledgeable about a wide variety of things: she knew the Shinto rites, she knew youkai, and she knew some medicine. The child wasn't very interested in religion or monsters, so their communications fell to flowers.

It started with a tiny purplish flower with five petals. "Gennoshouko," Kikyou said. "Good for stomachaches, and for cleansing wounds."

Clusters of white flowers that grew in flat groups close together. "Hamaboufuu," Kikyou said. "The root is used for joint stiffness and pain."

The girl found a vine with waxy white and yellow flowers. "Matatabi. It has many uses. Cats seem to get some enjoyment out of it." She smiled. "The fruits, and to a lesser extent the leaves, can be used to improve circulation and heart function," she said, as her heart continued to not beat in her chest.

The girl suddenly smiled and pointed at another flower, a little pink thing that grew in a ring of minuscule blossoms around the stalk. "Yakumosou," Kikyou said. "For...women's problems." The girl pointed at Kikyou curiously. "No, not for mine." Kikyou felt a sadness then, and pushed it away.

The girl looked at Kikyou, strangely serious all of a sudden. She put her hand on Kikyou's chest, and looked earnestly into her eyes.

"Kikyou," Kikyou said, and hesitated a moment. "Poison." The girl's eyes widened.

Kikyou did not come back to that village.


	62. Sickly

An old drabble I misplaced from 2006. Written for iyfic contest, theme "Sweet."

* * *

**Title:** Sickly  
**Words:** 175  
**Summary:** Lately, he prefers the savor.

＊.X.＊

Back then, he would tremble in the darkest room in the darkest house and his skin would shiver when Naraku slid his tongue from his chin to the soft, fine skin under his eyes and remark on the flavor.

"Not salty," he would say, "for living boys have salt in their tears, whereas yours aren't really of the body. You weep all the sweetness that you have lost."

And Kagura, who had never tasted a sweet thing in all her life, would watch hungrily.

＊.X.＊

His freedom came hard, so hard to him. Sango held her hand out to him, and in her he could see the gentleness of their childhood together, their innocence that had been bled and cried out of them, but which was perhaps not irrevocably lost. And he knew he could taste that again, by her side.

But he wanted no trace of that flavor tainting his mouth. It had turned sickly-sweet to him, like the flowers that should have been laid over his grave.

His path lay through bitterness, redemption, and the clean taste of ash.


	63. The First Test

For the iy wiltedrose theme, "Acceptable."

**Title:** The First Test  
**Author:** Aiffe  
**Rating:** G  
**Genre:** Backstory, general, Aiffe pretends she is subtle.  
**AU/Canon:** Canon.  
**Words:** 269  
**Summary:** The final test of her training has ended, and the first real test of Kikyou's will has begun.

＊.X.＊

Kikyou stands, tired and covered in sweat, as the _kannushi_ watches, his eyes unwavering. She is sure her dance had been flawless. Evil spirits would be banished by it, and the _kami_ would dance with her. But still she stands, waiting to hear his judgment. For a long time, the priest does not speak, his lips are pressed tightly together, and Kikyou begins to imagine flaws into the perfection she was so sure of a moment ago.

"Acceptable," he says.

At that moment, the pride that had kept her standing despite her exhaustion almost fails her. "Acceptable," she echoes softly. He could have spoken no worse word.

She turns to walk away. She will not cry. Not in front of him, anyway. He catches her shoulder, his fingers digging in just a bit harder than they need to. "Kikyou," he says.

She looks back at him. His expression is pained. "Will you not reconsider becoming a miko?" he says.

Kikyou knows her dance had been flawless. Where had she gone wrong? What mistakes had she made? "Was it that bad?" she asks him. She pulls away just enough to bow deeply to him. "Please," she says, without raising her head, "tell me how I can improve."

The priest pulls her up and embraces her, so that she cannot see his face, but she feels a dampness on her shoulder, and can hear in his voice that he was the one to cry, he, her master, while her eyes are still dry. "You were never 'acceptable'," he says. "You were always exceptional. Always, always, my Kikyou."


	64. A Heart for a Heart

A/N: Written for IYfic contest's "Blade" theme. Won third place.

* * *

**Title:** A Heart for a Heart  
**Words:** 250  
**Timing:** I don't see no voting post  
**Characters/Genre:** Sango. Kohaku. Gen. Angsty-angst-angst.  
**Summary:** The sword will decide what love cannot.

＊.X.＊

Sango does not like her sword.

It's too close a weapon. She gets bloody fighting with it, and it also necessitates looking her foe in the eye. Worse, she can _feel_ the vibrations of metal on flesh and bone traveling up the blade.

Kohaku stands before her, madness in his eyes. She draws her sword, and stands ready.

＊.X.＊

Kohaku does not like his sword.

He knows the blade waits for him. For what he has done there is but one path to honor, one path to peace. He tries to draw it, but finds it rusted shut.

The kusarigama he hates more. He cannot forget how easily it spilled the blood of his kin.

Sango stands before him and draws her sword, and suddenly there's no more air.

＊.X.＊

They walk a path along the edge of a blade. A single misstep, a moment of hesitation, these are all that stand between them and certain death.

Sango never thought the day would come when she would strike at her brother to kill.

It is Naraku's will, and not Kohaku's, that raises the kusarigama in defense.

When she strikes she makes a vow to follow him into the underworld. Kohaku tries to parry her blow with his chain, but her aim is strong and true, and Sango feels her sword pierce Kohaku's abdominal cavity. Blood spurts up and coats her. The steel has pierced his heart.

Kohaku's smile cuts like a knife. "Aim for the shard next time, Aneue."


	65. Hic Sunt Dracones

A/N: Written for IY Issekiwa's "Peril" theme.

* * *

**Title:** _Hic Sunt Dracones_  
**Words:** 250  
**Canon:** Some anime, some manga, some divergence. Whatever works.  
**Summary:** He always tried to save her.

＊.X.＊

When she met him, she remembered thinking he was very tall. His strides were much longer than hers, and after long days of her callused feet dragging over stones and roots and cool earth, she would reach for him. He wouldn't let her hold his right hand—he said it was made to hold a sword and nothing else—and he hadn't a left, so she'd grab his sash or a fistful of his fur robe, and let him sweep her along. She could have ridden Ah-Un, but her poorly-kept secret was that she stumbled just to be close to him, to touch something that touched him.

Her bare little foot pressed into Sesshoumaru's much larger imprint, and the monk begged her to stay. "He's dangerous," he warned. Rin just smiled at him. How could she explain?

At night she would try to be near him. Sesshoumaru-sama, dangerous?. Rin couldn't get close enough to be in peril.

Sometimes her hand would brush his before he pulled away. Sometimes she would be close enough to smell his hair, for her breath to tickle his neck. Sometimes, rarely, very rarely, he would allow this, though his eyes were as distant as ever.

He always tried to save her. Sometimes he couldn't, and she died anyway, but she forgave him. When she revived, he would not embrace her, or even smile, but she forgave him for that too. He knew her poorly-kept secrets, and she knew his.

_Sesshoumaru-sama, someday I will save you too._


	66. The Eavesdropping Type

Won third place in iyissekiwa's "Type" theme.

* * *

**Title:** The Eavesdropping Type  
**Words:** 250  
**Pairings:** Inuyasha/people who used to be Kikyou and possibly still are  
**Genre:** Romance Wangst  
**Summary:** Kagome always said she wanted a man who listened to her.

＊.X.＊

"Inuyasha...Inuyasha doesn't have a _type_," said Kagome at her most bitter. "He just falls in love with the same woman again and again." Then, in a whisper, almost as an afterthought, "And she isn't me."

Sometimes, Inuyasha thought ruefully, having such fantastic hearing was a curse. He knew enough already to know that some things he was better off _not_ knowing.

"Wish I could hear what they were saying," Miroku said at his elbow.

"You don't."

Miroku raised an eyebrow. "You can?"

"Nah. Just don't care what comes out of _her_ empty little head."

"Huh. I thought you liked her. Or is it really just the Kikyou thing? She isn't—"

"You don't have to tell me." That had been it, after all. Seeing Kagome. Not hearing about Kikyou's death, not seeing or smelling her risen corpse. Seeing Kagome. Seeing Kikyou in Kagome, the scraps that were left, what had passed through the veil and everything that had been lost forever.

That was when Kikyou had died for him. That was when he first felt old.

And truth to be told, Kagome actually wasn't his type. Not enough of Kikyou in her, or maybe too much. Always demanding more from him than he had to give. Maybe he needed that, or he'd never give any of himself.

"I just wish if he didn't want me he'd set me free," Kagome said.

"Even death can't do that," Inuyasha grumbled. "Apparently."


End file.
